Chapter 1 - THE WIFE IN THE LIVING ROOM
Richard stopped in the doorway.
For one full second, nobody spoke.
Alexis smiled.
“Finally.”
Richard looked at her.
Then at me.
Then at the coat still draped over my arm.
His face turned gray.
“Claire.”
Alexis frowned.
“Claire?”
I set the coat over the back of a chair.
“Yes.”
Richard swallowed.
“Why is she here?”
Alexis laughed.
“She let me in.”
I smiled.
“Apparently I’m the maid.”
Alexis’s smile disappeared.
Slowly.
She looked at me.
Then at Richard.
Then back at me.
“No.”
Richard closed his eyes.
I stood.
“My name is Claire Whitmore.”
Alexis went pale.
“Your wife?”
“Yes.”
The room went silent again.
Then Alexis looked at Richard.
“You said she was out.”
“I thought she was.”
That answer mattered.
Not denial.
Not confusion.
Routine.
He had done this before.
I looked at him.
“Tuesdays and Thursdays?”
He froze.
Alexis’s head turned.
I continued.
“Sometimes Saturdays when I’m supposedly at book club?”
Richard’s jaw tightened.
Alexis stared.
“You told me she had book club.”
I almost laughed.
“I don’t.”
Richard stepped toward me.
“Claire, let’s go upstairs.”
“No.”
“This isn’t—”
“Private?”
I looked at Alexis.
“She came into my house, insulted me in my living room, and told me about Cabo.”
Alexis looked sick.
“I didn’t know.”
“I believe you.”
Richard looked relieved for half a second.
I turned to him.
“That doesn’t help you.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Claire, please.”
“How long?”
Silence.
“Richard.”
“Six months.”
Alexis looked at him sharply.
“You said eight.”
I stared.
Interesting.
“Eight?”
Richard said nothing.
Alexis stood.
“You told me your marriage had been dead for years.”
I almost admired the cliché.
“What else did he tell you?”
Alexis looked at me.
“That you barely worked.”
I smiled.
“Two hundred employees.”
Her face changed.
“That you didn’t contribute financially.”
“I own the company that pays your father.”
That landed hard.
Richard said:
“Claire.”
“No.”
Alexis sat again.
“You own Whitmore Logistics?”
“Yes.”
“My dad works there.”
“Yes.”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Then I asked:
“What does Richard do on Tuesdays and Thursdays?”
She looked confused.
“Comes here.”
“Every week?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“January.”
My pulse changed.
January.
Two months before I stopped working those days.
That meant Richard had been using the house while believing I was gone.
But there was something worse.
I had been home on several Tuesdays in February.
Not all day.
But enough.
And I had never seen Alexis.
I looked at Richard.
“Which house?”
His expression changed.
Alexis frowned.
“What?”
I turned to her.
“When you say you come here, do you mean this house?”
She looked around.
“Yes.”
“The kitchen?”
“Yes.”
“The bedroom?”
Richard went still.
Alexis hesitated.
“The upstairs guest room.”
I stared.
We did not have an upstairs guest room.
Not anymore.
We had converted it into Richard’s home office three years earlier.
“Describe it.”
She did.
Blue wallpaper.
Brass bed.
Window facing the garden.
My stomach turned cold.
That room existed.
Just not here.
It existed at our old house.
The one Richard claimed we had sold five years ago.
The one where we lived before moving into this property.
I looked at him.
“You still own Hawthorne Street.”
His face drained completely.
Alexis whispered:
“What?”
Richard stepped forward.
“Claire—”
I backed away.
“You told me we sold it.”
“We did.”
“No.”
I looked at Alexis.
“You’ve been meeting him at our old house.”
She looked horrified.
Richard said:
“It’s complicated.”
I laughed.
“Good.”
Then I picked up my phone.
“Explain it simply.”
He said nothing.
I opened the county property database.
Hawthorne Street.
Owner:
R. Whitmore Holdings LLC.
My husband had kept the house.
Secretly.
For five years.
And as I stared at the filing, I saw something else.
May you like
The registered agent was not Richard.
It was my company’s chief financial officer.
